Tangled
by melanie39
Summary: Two years after Trey's death, Ryan and Marissa are still struggling to deal with its effect on their relationship.
1. Default Chapter

Tangled 

If Ryan thought back hard enough, he could recall many memorable driveway moments during his three years of permanent residence in the Cohen household. Amusing moments such as Seth's drunken not so stealth like tumble into Kirsten's plant pots. Heart breaking moments such as the stomach-wrenching goodbye to Kirsten as she headed off to rehab. Moments of unease such as when Eddie turned up looking for Theresa. But whenever Ryan returned to Newport after a period of absence, there was only ever one memory that insisted on rushing into his head, one that seemed determined never to let him alone, one that he wished he could banish forever from his mind, and that was the very first one. It was the memory of a warm August night, the air a mingled fragrance of ocean spray, jasmine and cigarette smoke and a sixteen year old girl, hair fallen over her face, bent over her cell phone, oblivious for a few seconds to the watchful boy beside her. He wondered sometimes if he hadn't got out of Sandy's car, if he hadn't walked down the driveway to get his nicotine fix, would they have ever hooked up? He'd have met her eventually of course, she lived next door, how could he not have? But that first glimpse of her was seared into his consciousness almost as strongly as the memory of his mother raising her hand in silent goodbye from the same spot a few weeks later. And despite all that he had learned about Marissa Cooper in the following weeks and months, it was the near perfect vision of her that he caught in that moment, her body on the verge of womanhood but still hinting at the child within, her flawlessly tanned skin save the freckles that danced on her nose and her eyes, intrigued and enticing, that had stayed with him for all these years.

"Hey kid. You ever gonna get out of the car?" Sandy stood with the car door open beside Ryan expectantly, chuckling at the look of surprise on his foster son's face.

"Sorry! Daydreaming I guess!" Ryan flushed awkwardly, hauling himself out of the seat.

Sandy studied him, a quizzical look on his face.

"You know, I can never park this car in this driveway with you in the passenger seat without thinking of that night…" Ryan smiled at his directness. It was kind of nice that Sandy read him so well.

The front door swung open and Kirsten ran down the incline to greet them.

Beaming broadly, she pulled him into a hug.

"My goodness, look at you! You look so grown up!"

"Kirsten, I just saw you two months ago," Ryan laughed.

She smiled and held him out in front of her to get a better look.

"You've lost weight. Are you eating properly?" she asked sharply.

Ryan rolled his eyes, amused, and allowed her to lead him into the kitchen. Her comment was always the same whenever he or Seth or both of them returned home from college. She seemed to think it her main duty in life to send them back to college twenty pounds heavier than when they left.

"Yes, I'm eating properly and no, I haven't lost weight. Actually I think I've put on a few pounds. Too much sitting around studying in the library and not enough time working out."

He picked up a bagel from the bowl, hitched himself up onto the island in the middle of the kitchen and began picking at the sesame coating.

"See?" she remonstrated. "I knew you were hungry! Let me cook you some bacon…" Ryan's eyes widened in mock alarm. "No, honestly, this is fine. A cup of coffee would be really great though…" he added, in an attempt to distract her from the stove.

"You look good!" he eyed her approvingly, his mouth full of bread.

Kirsten blushed, pleased that he had noticed but still slightly self-conscious that everybody was still watching her like a hawk, after almost six months of sobriety. It had been a long road since her first visit to Suriak, with several wrong turns along the way but she was finally allowing herself to believe that she might just make it.

"I'm getting there," she answered shortly and then changed the subject swiftly, "Your partner in crime is already holed up in the pool house. Apparently you have a semester's worth of comic books to help him catalogue and bag…"

Ryan made a face. "That'll be fun…"

Kirsten laughed.

"See if you can persuade him into the house. I want both of you boys around me as much as possible. Once this wedding gets under way, I know we'll hardly see you."

Ryan's face clouded momentarily as he was reminded of the reason he and Seth had been hauled back to Newport from their respective colleges just three weeks before the end of the spring semester.

He put down the bagel, his appetite suddenly lost, and took a deep breath in an attempt to steady his rapidly increasing heart rate.

"Have you seen her?" he murmured, barely able to look at Kirsten, fearful of her answer.

Kirsten groaned inwardly but forced herself to keep her tone light. In a second his demeanor had transformed from carefree to careworn and the old style brooding Ryan Atwood had reappeared.

His words hung in the air unanswered as Kirsten walked over to him and caught up his hand in her own. She brushed his bangs away from his forehead affectionately.

"Yes, I've seen her. She looks really well," she answered simply.

He nodded and swallowed nervously. "That's good, right? That's good…"

"Ryan, you always knew you'd have to see her sometime," Kirsten began softly. "The Coopers are our oldest friends. It was inevitable your paths would cross sooner or later."

"I know," he answered shortly, "it's just… you know…" he shrugged.

She squeezed his hand sympathetically.

"I know sweetie. But think about it, it'll be just as hard for her as it is for you,"

Ryan looked doubtfully at her.

Kirsten decided now was the time to change the subject.

"Look, go and find Seth would you? Drag him back in here and we'll get out the Take Out menus. You and Seth can pick O.K.?"

Ryan swung himself down from the island and headed off to the pool house, watched by a heavy-hearted Kirsten.

When Julie and Jimmy had announced they were to remarry, she and Sandy had relished the idea of an extra weekend visit from the boys but they had also both known that the festivities would be painful for Ryan. The summer that Marissa had killed Trey seemed a fading memory to her now but some of the wounds it had created still lay open, festering and refusing to heal, allowing no one involved in that dreadful event to really move on, and in particular Ryan and Marissa.

Almost two years had passed but both families were still struggling to deal with the repercussions of the emotional fallout brought about by Trey's death. In the few months that followed, Kirsten had watched from the relative distance of the rehab center as all four teens battled to reconcile their parts in the events of that traumatic night.

Seth had retreated into uncharacteristic silence, surrounding himself with his electronic gadgetry and his graphic novels, unable to forgive himself for not holding fast and waiting to talk to his father before talking to Ryan. Over and over that year, Sandy had repeated to both boys that if they were ever in any trouble that they should come to him, that they shouldn't try to handle things on their own. Yet once again Seth had ignored his father's words and the result had been cataclysmic. That Hailey had pleaded with him to remember that his father had been preoccupied that night and that he really shouldn't blame himself had meant nothing to the boy. Seth had witnessed before what happened when Ryan "lost" it and he couldn't forgive himself for not handling things differently.

Summer had spent the days after the shooting with her father. He had been shocked out of his normal absentee parenting and insisted keeping her close to him at all times. She had spent hours crying into his chest about what a dreadful friend she had been to Marissa and how her stupid love triangle with stupid Cohen and even stupider Zack had led her to neglect her best friend when she really needed her the most. She relived the sequence of events in her head on an hourly basis, hoping futilely that if she thought about it enough, history would change and she would somehow miraculously have gone to Julie or Jimmy and told them what had happened to Marissa and then she wouldn't have had to tell Cohen and then he wouldn't have thought he needed to tell Ryan and then…well, then she'd have her best friend and her boyfriend and they'd have had the most awesome summer like they should have had the summer before Ryan had run back to Chino and Cohen had sailed away. Instead, she shut out the glare of the summer sunshine and sat hunched up on the couch with her father while he stroked her hair, watching endless reruns of the Waltons where every crisis always turned out well after six commercial breaks and forty minutes.

After the police report had finally exonerated Marissa from any legal wrongdoing, she had been scooped up into the protective arms of her newly reunited family. Kaitlin had returned from boarding school for the holidays, surprisingly mature and empathetic towards her sister. The four of them had taken a long vacation to Hawaii and when they returned a couple of weeks before school started for the fall, Kaitlin had stuck to Marissa like glue, dragging her to the Mall, to Suki's, to the beach, anything to protect her from spiraling out of control.

Ryan, traumatized and grief stricken at the loss of his brother, coupled with the enormity of the realization that had Marissa not pulled the trigger, he'd probably be dead himself, struggled to pull himself together in a family already fractured by the absence of Kirsten in the household. Burdened by the guilt of his unswerving belief that he was the one who had put Marissa in danger in the first place and thus was entirely responsible for turning an already mentally fragile girl into a terrified and traumatized wreck and killer, he had even begged Sandy to emancipate him so that he could leave Newport and start afresh in a state where nobody knew him and nobody would expect anything of him. Sandy of course had refused point blank and at Kirsten's insistence, had battled with his foster son in order to get him to see a psychologist. Ryan had refused bluntly to see anybody.

"I don't like talking about stuff to people I know," he argued. "Why the fuck would I want to talk to some stranger?"

Sandy had ignored the language and done his best to attempt to change his mind. But Ryan had been determined. In some things, Ryan's roots were still firmly entrenched in blue collar Chino, where the very idea of a seventeen-year-old boy seeing a shrink would be mocked and ridiculed as a sign of unacceptable weakness.

Marissa and Ryan, kept apart at the initial stage of the police investigation, attempted a few dates later in the summer when Marissa returned from Hawaii but the great yawning chasm of guilt and hurt that lay between them made any meaningful contact impossible. And in the end, while Seth and Summer battled on with their relationship, growing stronger through it to the point, a year later, where they applied to and ended up at the same college, Ryan and Marissa's fledgling relationship had inevitably crashed under the strain of two teenagers who couldn't communicate with each other, each under the impression that they were not worthy of the other.

Finally, unable to bear seeing his daughter racked with pain every day she returned from school after yet another day of avoiding Ryan, he had packed up his family and relocated them to Hawaii, half way through Senior Year. Since then, the Cohens had not seen them, save the odd fleeting visit from Jimmy or Julie or both, usually in order to attend some Newpsie function or other which Julie mistakenly believed she absolutely should not miss.

Kirsten gazed out of the window at the Cooper's old house and silently wished herself back three years when all she had to worry about was Seth and if he would ever leave the house. Life had seemed so much simpler then.

* * *

"Hey!" Ryan leant his head against the pool house door and grinned at the sight before him.

"Hey dude, you're back!" Seth scrambled off Ryan's bed where he had been sprawled out, surrounded by comic books and discarded envelopes. They high-fived and Ryan sloped over to the bed and sank onto it. Seth pushed aside a pile of papers and joined him, resting his head against the pillows.

"So how goes it brother? Did you get any this semester?"

Ryan screwed his face up with distaste.

"Why would you even want to know that?"

"Because dude, I just want to make sure you're not going to come home this summer and be full of unresolved Ryan Atwood sexual tension, because we all know who bears the brunt of that."

Ryan picked up a copy of Legion and took a swipe at Seth's head.

"I guess that was a 'No' then…" he mumbled, rubbing the side of his face ostentatiously.

"Like I told you before Seth, I'm at college to study, not to get laid."

"Dude, you're taking this whole studying thing way too seriously. A degree is what you get in _addition_ to three years of awesome partying…"

Ryan swung off the bed and pulled off his sweater. It was way too hot for East coast clothing.

"Yeah, maybe for you Seth, you've always been able to party and not study and still get great grades. I have to work a little harder and there's no way I'm going to waste your parents' money by slacking off."

Seth bagged up the last comic book and set it on the pile with the others. He looked up at Ryan, his face suddenly serious.

"So, are you nervous?"

Ryan turned away from him as he grabbed a short-sleeved shirt from his closet.

"Nervous? Why would I be nervous?"

Seth's eyebrows shot up.

Ryan pointed to them as he buttoned up his shirt.

"Dude, I think they're coming in,"

Seth pulled his mouth into a fake smile. "Very funny Ryan!" but he touched them anyway and ran to a mirror to check.

"Anyways, don't try and change the subject to me, much as I would normally love it. You didn't answer me. I asked you if you were nervous… of seeing her?"

Ryan looked down at his feet, his shoulders sagging, suddenly defeated.

"I guess. I don't know what I'm going to say to her. It's not like we've really talked since she left. Actually, we never really talked even when she was here…" he added, more to himself than to Seth.

Seth kicked one of his feet against the other. "Maybe if you had…"

Ryan looked at him, his lips tight and his blue eyes suddenly cold.

"She made it pretty clear at the time Seth. And who can blame her really? Now do we have to talk about this any more? Your mom wants us in the house anyway. She wants us to choose the Take Out."

* * *

Ryan squirmed in his seat in the chapel, flanked by Seth on one side and Kirsten on the other. Seth had been right as usual. He _was_ nervous. So nervous he thought he might throw up. He wanted to take off his jacket that was threatening to suffocate him in this heat and walk outside and clear his head. He would have too if he hadn't thought he might bump into the wedding party assembling in the foyer.

Suddenly the music to the Trumpet Voluntary crashed through the muted chatter

and filled the room, people struggling to their feet in automated response. His heart clattered inside his chest as the inevitable moment drew nearer. Kirsten gave his hand an encouraging squeeze.

Julie appeared at the doorway, her arm linked through Sandy's, her face radiant. Sandy glanced over to his family and gave them a surreptitious wink before escorting his "former neighbor-come–mother-in-law" down the aisle to a waiting Jimmy.

Ryan's mouth was as dry as dust as he stood waiting for the procession to pass him. His breath caught in his throat, robbing him of oxygen, as he caught his first glimpse of her. It was stupid really, how she could still do this to him, after all this time, after all that they had been through. That she could still make his heart somersault and reduce him to a state of incoherency.

* * *

"Oh my God Ryan, don't look now!" Seth picked up the now redundant menu from amongst the debris at their table and hid his face behind it.

"What's the matter?" Ryan asked resignedly.

"The 'rents, Ryan. Totally getting it on on the dance floor…"

Ryan rolled his eyes and took a swift glance over to the dance floor, making sure his eyes swept first past the table where Marissa and her now remarried parents sat. She still hadn't made eye contact with him. He felt as though there was a rock sat in the pit of his stomach. If he was being honest with himself, he had pinned a lot on this day, hoping secretly that they might have had the chance to talk, so that he could at least say sorry.

Seth kicked him hard under the table.

"You could actually ask her to dance,"

Ryan gave him the Atwood glare of doom.

"Or not…" Seth trailed. "Come on dude, you've been mooning over her all day."

"I have not!"

Seth looked at him with mock indignation, his eyebrows raised and crooked.

"Ryan, you haven't taken your eyes off her since the minute she walked down the aisle."

Ryan looked concerned and shifted uncomfortably.

"Is it that obvious?"

"To me, yes, but then I am your brother and we do have this near telepathic connection…"

Ryan sighed, leaning back in his chair and loosening his tie. He took a sip from his glass of wine and rubbed his eyes tiredly.

Seth leaned forward eagerly, his deep brown eyes sparkling with determination.

"Dude, what is it you're afraid of?"

Ryan shrugged and turned away from the eyes boring into him.

Seth was frustrated with Ryan. Two years he'd had to put up with this crap. Two years of watching Ryan sulk like some love lost teenager. Oh right, that was it. He _was_ a love lost teenager, well technically a love lost twenty-year-old now. He knew what Ryan had been through was dreadful, he got that and he wasn't trying to gloss over the horror of it all, but it was so painfully obvious to him that Ryan was still desperately in love with her, that he couldn't understand why he didn't just ask her if they could give it another shot. What was the worst she could say? He refused to give up.

"You know, Summer tells me Marissa hasn't dated anyone since you…"

Ryan scowled.

"Yeah, and maybe if I hadn't thrown her and Trey together that weekend, she _would_ have…" he spat bitterly.

Seth lowered his eyes and rubbed his finger in circles across the rim of his wine glass.

"I don't think that's the reason dude…" he muttered softly.

Ryan leant across the table as close as he could get to Seth's face.

"Seth, she almost got raped by my brother. Do you blame her for not wanting another guy to touch her?"

Seth bit his lip, intimidated, torn between wishing he'd kept his counsel and wanting to make things right for Ryan and Marissa.

"Look, I'm not trying to diminish the awfulness of what happened Ryan, because it _was_ awful, we all know that, but honestly, I think her not dating anyone has more to do with you than Trey…"

"We tried dating. It didn't work out. You know that."

Seth shrugged in irritation.

"Dude, that was nearly two years ago. Things change, people change. Memories fade…"

Ryan shoved his hands into his suit jacket pockets and allowed himself another surreptitious glance over his shoulder towards the table where Marissa sat, laughing at something her dad had whispered into her ear. As she tossed her head, her eyes met his briefly. A ghost of a smile flitted across her face before she turned towards her sister.

* * *

"Say something to me quickly…" she whispered urgently, brushing her hand through her hair and trying to appear nonchalant.

"What? Why?" Kaitlin screwed up her nose in confusion.

Marissa rolled her eyes in irritation at her clueless sister.

"Could you _be_ any less stealth?"

"Oh, he's looking again right?" she teased. "I don't know why you don't just go over and say hello…"

Marissa sighed, planted her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Kaitlin was her _much_ younger sister.

"It's complicated!"

"It's always been complicated with Ryan," Kaitlin responded, pulling a flower from her bridesmaid's bouquet and picking off its petals absent-mindedly. I don't know why you're so shy. You guys lived in and out of each others pockets…"

"That was a long time ago," Marissa answered wistfully.

Kaitlin sat back and studied her sister. How could she not see? If Kaitlin had been unsure of Ryan's feelings towards her sister before the wedding, there was absolutely no doubt in her mind now. But Marissa was just too insecure and lacking in confidence to believe it.

Impulsively, Kaitlin grabbed her sister's hand.

"Come on, come with me…"

"What? Wait Kaitlin. Where are we going?" Marissa stumbled slightly as her sister yanked her from the table and pulled her towards Ryan and Seth's table.

Marissa, mortified at the realization of where her sister was heading, attempted to flee but her sister's grip was too strong.

Seth, from his position facing the top table, watched the ensuing battle with amusement. This was going to be interesting. It appeared that Marissa's sister had had about as much as he had of their respective sibling's intransigence.

A sharp tap on Ryan's shoulder jerked him out of his thoughts.

"You, her, dance floor, now!" Kaitlin shoved her sister in front of her, as Ryan stood up alarmed. He cast a quick desperate look at Seth.

"Not getting involved!" he said, raising his hands in a gesture of submission and tipping his chair back laughing.

Ryan turned towards Marissa, brushing his damp palms on his thighs and swallowing his nerves as best he could. Blinking rapidly, he found his voice from somewhere deep in the recesses of his stomach.

"Uh, you want to dance?"

tbc


	2. Chapter 2

Hee. So it appears I don't 'do' non-angst romance. Who knew? here is part two of my Ryan/Marissa fic. Best read while listening to Coldplay's Fix You, which was kind of my inspiration.

_When you lose something that you can't replace _

_When you love someone but it goes to waste_

_Could it be worse?_

_And high up above or down below_

_When you're too in love to let it go_

_But if you never try you'll never know_

_Just what you're worth._

Tangled – Chapter Two 

_The first time ever I saw your face _

_I thought the sun rose in your eyes _

Sandy nudged Kirsten as they drifted round the dance floor to Roberta Flack's voice.

"What?" Kirsten asked, vaguely annoyed to be disturbed from a warm romantic clinch with her husband. Sandy gestured towards the newly arrived couple on the dance floor.

A moment of concern swept over Kirsten's face before she allowed herself a slight knowing smile.

Sandy looked at her bewildered.

"Ryan and Marissa?" he said. Kirsten rolled her eyes and sighed at her husband's complete clueless ness.

"Sandy, you are so hopeless when it comes to matters of the heart…" she remonstrated.

He managed to laugh and look hurt all at the same time.

"What? But I thought, you know, they'd both given up on that relationship."

Kirsten shook her head in disbelief.

"Sandy, has it escaped your notice that Ryan has dated no one since Marissa? I mean, no one that we know of, or Seth knows of…"

Sandy shrugged.

"So maybe he's sowing his wild oats? Or maybe he just hasn't met the right girl yet…" attempting to defend himself.

Kirsten stopped dancing, tipped her head at an angle and regarded her husband.

"Or maybe he met the right girl on a driveway at sixteen years old?"

Sandy looked sheepish.

"I guess I just thought, you know…they'd moved on…"

Kirsten slapped him affectionately and went back to resting her head on his shoulder.

"I just hope he knows what he's doing," she murmured into her husband's neck. "All I want is to see him happy."

* * *

_The first time ever I kissed your mouth _

_And felt your heart beat close to mine_

Marissa laughed shyly as she placed her hands round Ryan's neck.

"What?" He eyed her quizzically as he placed a hand on each hip and drew her just a little closer to him. Not close like a couple, but close enough that he could smell her perfume and feel her breath, warming the naked spot at the base of his neck where his shirt collar lay open.

"I used to have to wear flats when I danced with you, remember?" Their eyes both traveled to her feet and Ryan grinned to see the small heels at the base of her sandals.

He shrugged and a wry smile lit up his eyes. "Guess I had a growth spurt after you left…Kirsten spent a lot of time senior year dragging me round the mall…."

She giggled. "Bet you enjoyed that!" They both laughed at the vision of a reluctant Ryan being hauled under protest from store to store, before falling silent, moving slowly around the dance floor, awkwardness returning between them.

He wanted to pull her close to him, have her rest her head on his shoulder, wrap his arms tightly around her body, sink his face into her hair. He wanted her to know how sorry he was, how much he loved her, how much he had missed her.

_And the first time ever I lay with you _

_I felt your heart so close to mine_

Marissa studied his face properly for the first time that day. He had grown so much taller than her that she now had to look up to his face. He certainly looked older, leaner, paler than she remembered him but his eyes were still the same. She'd always been drawn to his eyes. Once she'd gotten to know him properly, she'd worked out that his eyes were the key to knowing what was going on with him, which was just as well seeing as she could never rely on his words. And as she looked at them now, they were dark and troubled and confused. A lump formed in her throat as she felt the desire to pull him down to her, stroke his hair, whisper reassurances into his ear.

As the song met its conclusion, people began to drift off the dance floor and they both became aware of several pairs of eyes watching them. Julie was whispering something to Jimmy at their table, while keeping her elder daughter firmly in her sights.

"Hey, do you want to get out of here for a while? Go for a walk on the beach or something?" He bit his lip anxiously as he waited for her to respond.

"OK," she agreed, keeping her tone light. "Let me just stop off at the bathroom."

* * *

"Jimmy!" Julie's eyes flashed.

"Sweetheart?" Jimmy turned to his wife pleasantly as she took a large gulp of champagne from her glass.

"Look!" Julie waved a perfectly manicured hand towards the dance floor.

"Hmm, you want to dance?"

"No! I mean, yes, that would be lovely later," Julie rearranged her face into something vaguely resembling a gracious smile. "but look who's on the dance floor…"

Jimmy swiveled round in his chair and scanned the couples quickly.

"Ah, Marissa and Ryan," he smiled benevolently. "He's grown a lot!"

Julie rolled her eyes in frustration.

"Jimmy, you must do something…Marissa's spent the last two years trying to get over that boy…"

Jimmy leant forwards and spoke to his wife in a low but firm voice.

"Yes, and she still isn't over him. And nor, clearly, is he over her!"

"But Jimmy, I don't want Marissa upset, not again…"

Jimmy folded his arms resignedly and scowled. "I'll catch him later Jules…I promise!"

* * *

Ryan rested his head idly against the wall in the hallway, waiting for Marissa to finish doing whatever it was took girls so long in the bathroom. A couple of kids he recognized from Harbor walked past and waved at him in acknowledgement.

"Ryan!" Ryan stood up straight as Jimmy Cooper approached him. He put out his hand and Jimmy grabbed it, shaking warmly.

"Good to see you Ryan. I'm glad you could make it."

"Congratulations…" Ryan spoke haltingly, unnerved by the appearance of Marissa's father.

Jimmy stood silently for a moment as if debating what to say. Ryan stared down at his shoes uncomfortably.

"Waiting for Marissa?"

Ryan looked up apologetically.

"Uh, yeah. Is that OK?" he asked, suddenly wary.

Jimmy sighed wearily. The last thing he wanted to do was interfere, but he'd promised Julie he'd speak to him.

"Look Ryan, you know I've always been supportive of your relationship with Marissa."

Ryan allowed himself a small grimace. He could guess what was coming.

"You're a good kid, I know that. Julie knows that too," he added purposefully. Ryan's eyebrows raised in skepticism. Jimmy continued. "But I don't want to see Marissa go through another two years like the last two."

Ryan chewed his lip as he tried to figure out whether Jimmy was warning him off. Jimmy, despite his shortcomings, was a good father who loved Marissa. Of course he would want to protect her.

"I just need to make things right, between us," he whispered, darting a pleading look at Jimmy. Jimmy nodded his head slowly in understanding and patted him on the shoulder firmly.

"Just be careful, is all I ask…"

Ryan nodded solemnly.

"Daddy!" Both men turned to see Marissa appear from the bathroom.

Jimmy kissed her lightly on the forehead.

"I'll see you later kiddo. Have a good time with Ryan."

A look of bemusement passed over Marissa's face as she watched her father disappear back into the party.

"What was that all about?" she laughed.

Ryan plunged his hands into his jacket pocket and looked her straight in the eye. "Your dad, just looking out for you."

Marissa flushed apologetically. "Sorry. He's become very protective. Did he give you a hard time?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, he was fine, honestly. I'm just relieved it wasn't your mom…"

* * *

The beach was bathed in the golden light of an early evening sunset. A few families were still packing up their belongings and herding tired and cross children along the sandy path to waiting cars, which sat stewing in the remnants of the day's heat.. As they reached the beach, they took off their shoes and ambled towards the ocean. The sand felt cool and damp between their feet as they reached the water's edge.

"It seems like ages since I've seen the ocean,"

Marissa glanced across at him.

"Do you miss it?"

Ryan shrugged. "Not really. But I miss home…. you know, the Cohens…" he added in explanation.

Marissa dug her toe into the sand, watching idly as the groove she made with her foot filled with water and then sank away again just as fast.

"So, how's school?" she asked.

"It's OK I guess, hard work, usual stuff…Are you going to start in the Fall? Kirsten said you were taking some time out…"

"I didn't want to rush into anything. It was good to just hang out with Mom and Dad and Kaitlin for a while longer…"

Ryan smiled at her. "I get that," he said quietly. Marissa looked at him regretfully. Even after all these years, he still looked lost when it came to talking about family. She tossed her hair back suddenly and grabbed his hand.

"Lets go back over there and sit down shall we? The wind's picking up. I don't want to look like a scarecrow when I get back!"

* * *

They sat together cross-legged, their shoulders barely touching, a wall between them, invisible but forbidding. The sun had started to sink and a fiery semicircle sat upon the glittering ocean. Marissa picked at a tuft of grass that had sprouted up in the sand. Two years she'd waited for a moment like this, to be alone with him, and now she didn't have a clue what to say. What could she say? Sorry I shot your only brother? Sorry I wrecked the chance of your family ever becoming a family again?

Soft mumbling broke into her thoughts.

"So…I'm sorry, you know, for everything…"

Marissa raised her head to him, confused.

"What are _you_ sorry for? I was the one who.."

Her words, unfinished, hovered briefly in the air between them.

"Yeah, I know…but if I hadn't been so stupid..." he faltered, his eyes clouded.

"When I went to Miami and he…" His voice began to crack.

"Ryan don't. This was never your fault. Trey was not your responsibility…You know, I always thought…"

Ryan looked at her questioningly.

"I always thought you blamed me…for killing your brother…"

He was nonplussed.

"Why would you even think that? You killed him so …..so he wouldn't kill me," he stated flatly.

Marissa stared out towards the ocean, twisting the tough fibers of grass around her index finger so tightly the tip was flushed purple.

"I've thought over those few minutes so many times," she began, still gazing ahead, "I wondered if I'd done things differently, you know, whether he'd still be alive. Whether all our lives would have been different."

Ryan shook his head firmly.

"Don't ever think like that. You did what you had to do…"

Marissa turned back to him, searching his face for answers to questions she hadn't wanted to know before.

"Do you really think he'd have done it?"

Ryan swallowed and glanced away briefly, unnerved by her directness.

"In the rage he was in? Yes, I think he would have."

"And you?" she asked tentatively, unable to look at him.

Ryan focused on the rise and fall of his chest as he struggled to control the rapid increase in his breathing. He'd known this would come up. How could it not? This was something he'd dealt with. Something, in the end, that he'd had to confront. An issue, finally, that had driven him to seek the counselor Sandy had so desperately wanted him to see.

"Yes," he answered almost inaudibly. "I like to convince myself I'd have stopped, but ….I'm not sure I would have," he admitted. He raised a pair of blue eyes to her, steady and honest.

Marissa was still curious and gently pressed him further.

"I get why you were mad, but mad enough to kill him?"

Ryan thought for a moment, his head bowed, his face obscured from view under his mop of tousled hair.

"I just kept thinking….if he hadn't dragged me out with him that night in Chino, if he hadn't made me get in that car…."

Marissa felt an actual dull physical ache in her chest as she saw his shoulders slump.

"You'd still have your mom?" she finished gently, reaching for his hand. Ryan kept his eyes fixed firmly on his lap.

"And then…here he was, fucking me over again…. and I was losing another family….and I just wanted to hurt him so much for doing that to me again…."

Tears prickled in front of her eyes as she studied this boy who had walked into her life and stolen her heart right when she'd least expected it. She moved closer and wrapped her arm protectively around his shoulder.

"I don't understand Ryan. Did he do something to Seth? To the Cohens?"

Ryan shook his head dismissively. He shifted in the sand and pushed his hands under his thighs in an attempt to stop them trembling. His eyes looked into hers, pleading.

"You don't get it do you?"

She shook her head, completely out of her depth.

"You're as much my family as the Cohens. Don't you know that? Don't you know what you mean to me? From the moment I arrived in Newport, you were always there, for better, for worse, you always were. Hell, I've known you longer than I've known Seth…."

"By a few hours…" she murmured, momentarily distracted from the enormity of what he was struggling to tell her. He pulled his hands out from under him, curling his legs up under his chin and wrapping his arms around them, resting his cheek on his knees so that he was looking at her sideways.

"I don't think Trey really knew it consciously, what he was doing, I mean. But deep down he didn't want me to have something he couldn't. To him, you were just another person in this new family that I had and you just reminded him of what I had gained and he had lost. But I guess the joke was on me in the end… because I lost you anyway…"

Marissa sat and looked at him, eyes wide with sudden realization. She lifted her hand to his mouth and stroked his lips tenderly, tracing a path lightly with her fingers.

"You never lost me Ryan…"

Ryan stayed motionless, allowing her fingers to linger over him, his eyelids blinking erratically as he sat transfixed.

His heart was thumping in his chest like a freight train and he knew if he didn't do this now, then the moment would pass and they may never get it back again. And suddenly he didn't care that Jimmy had warned him off. He didn't care that Seth would tease him mercilessly. He didn't care that at some point in the future, Julie Cooper could quite possibly end up his mother in law. Because all that mattered was being with her. Because she was, he knew, all that he had ever wanted.

Wordlessly he took her hand from his face and held it firm in his grasp. Sweeping his tongue around his lips briefly, he leaned forward and tucked his free hand under her hair to the warm space at the back of her neck. She lifted her face up to his, their eyes locking briefly in mutual consent, as he pulled her towards him and placed his lips softly against hers. He shut his eyes and surrendered to the warm, sweet sensation of kissing her as she yielded beneath him.

* * *

Later, she lay against his chest, his jacket wrapped around her as he stroked her hair absently. Strains of eighties rock music filtered through the cool night air, indicating the celebrations were still going strong. Marissa sat up with a shiver and pulled his jacket closer around her.

"You know," she began, propping herself up on her elbows and tipping her head back, studying the clear night sky above, "that summer just before you arrived in Newport? I'd get back from another party at Holly's or date with Luke and I'd go out onto my balcony and look up at the sky. I'd look up at the stars and think, somewhere, someone, right now, is under the same sky as me. Someone I'm going to meet one day and fall in love with and I don't know them yet, but they're already out there. And it was really strange you know? But kind of exciting too…" her voice drifted off wistfully.

He laughed, bafflement clear on his face. Girls were so weird. He'd never be able to figure them out…

"So," he teased, rolling over and kissing her affectionately on the nose, "do you still spend your time gazing up at the sky waiting for Mr. Right?"

She turned on him, an equally teasing quip ready on her lips. But suddenly she stopped, hesitated and her voice fell soft.

"Actually?" she said, " I never did it again after that summer…"

fin


End file.
